Contemporary artist HOCK E
AYE VI Edgar Heap of Birds (Cheyenne/Arapaho) provides a
critical context for analyzing both the individual and collective
conscience of Native peoples living in the Americas. With art that
structures time, place, and meaning into text-based messages, Heap
of Birds succeeds in reclaiming the political status of art by
simultaneously engaging and challenging the history of the United
State’s relationship to its indigenous populations and the natural
environment.

Most notably, the artist has displayed a
quote from the American Declaration of Independence on an
outdoor billboard (on the corner of Ellice Avenue and Smith
Street) that captures the social conscience of an era in
American history when state power maintained an incendiary
position toward Native inhabitants by declaring them
“merciless Indian savages.” While the rest of the
original document proclaims all men to be created equal with
certain unalienable rights, Heap of Birds’s billboard deftly
reveals the hypocrisy inherent in the text while actively
implicating the constitution of the work of art into public
space.

As with many public art pieces
whose realization depends upon audience participation, Heap of Birds
embraces a collective model in deference toward revealing the full
social humanity of the experiences of Native people living in the
Americas. This integration of Native consciousness into the
billboard text successfully necessitates a reordering of structures
of power since meaning is often subject to multiple interpretations
in the public realm. Indeed, as one scholar put it, “hostile or
harmonious, the world resonates with the human presence, intrudes
upon it, and will not be denied.”[1]

In tandem with his billboard
project, the artist strikes a balance at Urban Shaman Gallery with
an exhibition of his prints, drawings, and metal
Native Host signs that bespeak a
private vision focused upon expressing the complexities often
scarcely revealed concerning the
conditions of modern Indian existence in the US. The challenge that Heap of Birds sought to
address in these works are historically and ideologically connected
to the image of the Indian as savage (as in the Declaration of
Independence), whose humanity and freedom are continuously denied to
him/her even in the present era.

By addressing America’s policy toward its
minority populations and international relations, Heap of
Birds used varying color pastels to form word phrases in
“American Policy” that narrate US actions and artistic
intervention. Often, the image that comes through is
an interrogation of the history of violence, subjugation,
and oppression shared by Native cultures.

In “Native Hosts,” these series of metal
signs have been publicly installed in various cities in the
US and Canada to likewise highlight the presence of Native
peoples in those areas by revealing the names of places
written backwards as a directive for viewers to “turn
around” and remember Native history.

On a more personal note, Heap
of Birds has also created a whole new series of monoprints titled
“This Is Being” to offer a corollary experience that is entirely
positive and comes from a decidedly sensual and personal affect. In
fact, the artist believes that “as Native people, we are often
relegated to act only as victims or radicals. We must also allow
ourselves the human privilege to behave in sensuous ways as well.”[2]

By offering both public and
private perspectives on the Native experience in America, Heap of
Birds has presented a significant body of work that exceeds ordinary
expectation and inspires communicative exchange.

Shanna Ketchum
(Navajo) is a critic and art historian of
contemporary Native American art. Her articles have
appeared in major publications such as Third Text
(London), Estrago (Latin America),
Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian
and the Plains Art Museum (USA). Ketchum has also
lectured, both nationally and internationally, about
contemporary issues in Native art at UCLA,
California Institute for the Arts, Central St.
Martins (London), and Bandung Institute of
Technology (Java).